Currie flew from North Carolina to California to meet with Washington State coach Mike Leach about Tennessee’s football coaching vacancy. Tennessee administrators lost contact with Currie for several hours as he flew cross country, during which time they were unsure of his whereabouts. After landing in California, Currie learned that another candidate, North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren, accepted a deal to remain the Wolfpack’s coach.

“Those kind of things wind up in someone’s obituary,” said Harvey Schiller, an athletics brand and image expert and a sports business executive who was the SEC commissioner from 1986-90. “Something like going back and forth on a coaching search or making mistakes along the way don’t wind up that way.”

Schiller said the coaching search won’t have a lasting negative impact on the Tennessee football or university brand.

“In fact, I might even suggest that it might bring more attention to the program that might not be there (otherwise),” Schiller said. “There’s a saying: If you have a dull party, start a fire in the kitchen.”

“In terms of brand, universities, they sustain all sorts of challenges throughout their history,” Schiller added. “This is one that is not unique or unusual.”

Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer watches during a University of Tennessee football practice Thursday, March 29, 2018.

Tennessee football has been a pretty dull party the past two decades. The Vols haven’t won an SEC title since 1998, the season of their last national championship. And the Vols haven’t achieved a double-digit-win season since 2007, Phillip Fulmer’s penultimate season.

The coaching search resulted in Currie’s tenure as Tennessee’s AD ending after eight months. It left Fulmer standing as AD and Jeremy Pruitt as Tennessee’s coach.

The chaotic coaching search shouldn’t affect Pruitt.

“If he can coach, he’ll win. And if he can’t, he’ll lose,” Schiller said.

Can Currie rebound?

University of Tennessee athletic director, John Currie speaks during a press conference announcing the firing of head football coach, Butch Jones, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017, in Knoxville, Tenn.

Kelly chose UCLA over Florida. Mullen opted for Florida over Tennessee, and it was all downhill from there for Currie’s search.

At Tennessee, Currie perhaps will be most remembered as the athletic director who started a coaching search he didn’t complete. But his tenure also included the popular move of bringing back the Lady Vols brand and logo that his predecessor, Dave Hart, had discontinued.

Based on the flood of sympathetic text messages that Tennessee coaches and athletic administrators sent Currie in the wake of his Dec. 1 suspension, Currie had his supporters within the university.

“He’s a good leader,” Schiller said.

Currie finds himself in a place that’s not uncommon for anyone who spends much time in high-level college athletics positions — unemployed.

“John is like a lot of people,” Schiller said. “If you look across the spectrum of professional and college leadership and sports, change is what mostly it is about. People are constantly moving and for a variety of reasons.”

Before returning to Tennessee, where Currie spent many years as a senior athletic administrator, Currie was Kansas State’s athletic director for eight years.

Successful men’s basketball coach Frank Martin left Kansas State on Currie’s watch for South Carolina, but Currie replaced Martin with Bruce Weber, who this season led the Wildcats to their second Elite Eight appearance in the past 30 years.

B. David Ridpath, an expert in NCAA matters, doesn’t think college athletics has seen the last of Currie, who is 46.

“I don’t think he’s ruined his career by any stretch,” said Ridpath, associate professor of sports administration at Ohio University and a former athletic department administrator. “I think he can get hired again.”

Schiller agrees.

“He’ll find a good position, and my guess is he’ll succeed,” Schiller said. “I always say this: Leadership is a strange thing. Two things have to happen. The organization has to be ready for you. And you have to be ready for the organization. And not everybody fits every glove. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that fit down the road or that haven’t been in the past.”